Associated Press CEO calls records seizure unconstitutional'

In this Sunday, May 19, 2013, photo provided by CBS News, Gary Pruitt, the President and CEO of the Associated Press, discusses the leak investigation that led to his reporters' phone records being subpoenaed by the Justice Department on CBS's "Face the Nation" in Washington. Pruitt says the Justice Department's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional", and he said that the secret subpoena of reporters' phone records has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists. (AP Photo/CBS, Chris Usher)

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press’ president and chief executive says the government’s secret seizure of two months of reporters’ phone records has already had a chilling effect on newsgathering, a week after the subpoenas were revealed publicly.

Gary Pruitt on Sunday called the Justice Department’s actions “unconstitutional” and said the AP hasn’t ruled out legal action.

In his first television interviews since the AP reported the Justice Department seizure, Pruitt said it has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans’ information from all news outlets.

Pruitt told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the government has no business monitoring the AP’s newsgathering activities.

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“And if they restrict that apparatus ... the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he said.

In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said, “It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated.”

He said President Barack Obama “should rein in that out-of-control investigation.”

“They’ve been secretive, they’ve been overbroad and abusive — so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,” he added.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the government needs to stop leaks by whatever means necessary.

“This is an investigation that needs to happen because national security leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed,” he said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the government should focus on those who leak sensitive national security matters and not on journalists who report on them. The Texas Republican said his committee should hold hearings on how the Justice Department obtained phone records from AP reporters and editors.

“What confuses me is the focus on the press, who have a constitutional right here and we depend on the press to get to the bottom of so many issues that we, as individuals, cannot,” Cornyn said.

Cornyn said the Justice Department’s actions were part of a pattern for Obama’s administration to quiet its critics.

“It’s a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble,” Cornyn said.

He also renewed his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, citing the contempt citation the House of Representatives voted against him last year for refusing to turn over documents in a failed government gun smuggling sting.

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president “has complete faith in Attorney General Holder.” He also insisted the White House was not involved in the decision to seek AP phone records.

“A cardinal rule is we don’t get involved in independent investigations. And this is one of those,” Pfeiffer said.

Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.

“We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said the AP published the story only after officials from two government entities said the threat had passed. He said the administration still asked that the story be held until an official announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.

The news service viewed the story as important because White House and Homeland Security Department officials were saying publicly there was no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

“So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story,” Pruitt said.

The AP has seen an effect on its newsgathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department’s subpoena, he said.

“Officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us,” Pruitt said. “They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of personal and work telephone records for several reporters and editors, as well as general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

“It was sweeping and broad and beyond what they needed to do,” Pruitt said.

He objected to the “Justice Department acting on its own being the judge, jury and executioner in secret,” saying the AP would not back down.

“We’re not going to be intimidated by the abusive tactics of the Justice Department,” he said.

McConnell and Pfeiffer were interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Cornyn appeared on “Face the Nation.”